"De Non Tolerandis Judaeis"

Mainline churches and Islamist organizations are now propagating the grand scheme of demonizing the “Judaization of Jerusalem”.

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Giulio Meotti, 15/06/11 11:02

giulio meott

צילום: עצמי

Giulio Meotti

The writer, an Italian journalist with Il Foglio, writes a twice-weekly column for Arutz Sheva. He is the author of the book "A New Shoah", that researched the personal stories of Israel's terror victims, published by Encounter and of "J'Accuse: the Vatican Against Israel" published by Mantua Books.. His writing has appeared in publications, such as the Wall Street Journal, Frontpage and Commentary.

The European Union, the United Nations, the human rights groups, the global media and the Obama’s Administration are going crazy about the Israeli enthusiasm for living, excavating and building in East Jerusalem or any areas of Jerusalem restored to the Jewish state in 1967.

It's because a united Jerusalem stands in sharp contrast to the period between 1948 and 1967, when the capital was under Arab control, the Old City was closed to Jews, and the ancient synagogues were systematically desecrated.

The walls, barbed wire, and snipers that divided the city by force are now gone, but Islamic authorities, European beaurocrats and leftist activists are exercising their ability to obliterate any evidence of the pre-modern Jewish connection to the city. Today the names of the areas in conflict are Silwan, Ramat Shlomo, Ras al Amud, the Shepard Hotel (where the Mufti of Jerusalem had been living), the Mount of Olives and the houses near the tomb of Shimon Hatzadik, the awe-inspiring high priest in front of whom Alexander the Great is said to have prostrated himself.

In 1990 the story was the St. John’s Hospice, when 150 Israelis moved into the building in the Old City, and again there was an outcry, condemnation at the UN, burning tires, the High Court, and eviction (now some Jewish families are living in the building, known as Neot David).

Across from the Tomb of Shimon Hatzadik is a cave where the Ramban, acronym for the leading medieval Jewish scholar Nahmanides, is also allegedly buried. A few meters to the north is another cave, where 23 former heads of the Sanhedrin are buried.

South of the Temple Mount lies the Kidron Valley, formed by Mount Zion on one side and the Mount of Olives on the other. All agree that the City of David, the capital of Israel during the First Temple period, lay south of today’s Old City and sprawled down the side of a hill bordered by the Kidron Valley. The City of David is today one of the hottest open archaeological sites in the world, with biblical artifacts, ancient burial spots and royal seals.

Mainline churches and Islamist organizations are now propagating the grand scheme of demonizing the “Judaization of Jerusalem”. The former Vatican’s arcibishop in Jerusalem, Michel Sabbah, just promoted an appeal to the UE and US to “stop the Hebraization of Jerusalem” and the current Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Fouad Twal, is denouncing the “Judaization of the city”.

In 1974, Unesco voted sanctions against Israeli digs in Jerusalem and last year it proclaimed that Rachel’s Tomb and Hebron’s Cave of Machpela (the Cave of the Patriarchs, bought by Abraham as recorded in the Bible)) are “Muslim mosques”.

We should grasp what meanings lie beneath those words: “Judaization of Jerusalem”. The thrust is plain: any project of Jews to live in the eastern part their capital is an example of Israel’s colonialism.

To deny the right of Jews to live anywhere in Israel makes them lesser in nationhood than any other people.

In all its usages, “Judaization” has been an accusation against Jews, not just Israelis, when the majority of them were living in Europe. In the 16th century, many Polish towns obtained the so called “privilegia de non tolerandis Judaeis”, cities in which the Jews were forbidden to live. Europe had the Jewish ghettos during the Middle Ages and the zoning restrictions in the Czarist Russia.

This crusade against “Israel’s apartheid” is a renewal of the Nazi “rassenschande” laws, meant at ghettoizing the Jews and protecting the Aryan blood from being defiled by the Jews. Now they call it "apartheid".